


Smells of Gas

by thomasjeffersonsmacaroni



Series: The Other 51 [39]
Category: Town of Salem (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-26 14:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10788849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thomasjeffersonsmacaroni/pseuds/thomasjeffersonsmacaroni
Summary: Sam and Leah, two young girls, meet in the sandbox and instantly become best friends.Years later, an Arsonist and a Transporter face off in a terrifying system of death games.





	Smells of Gas

**Author's Note:**

> You: SKArso  
> Me, an intellectual: Trans/Arso

_A young girl, strawberry blonde hair tied in two messy braids, sat in the sandbox, scooping the coarse stuff into a small red bucket, dumping it upside down to try and make a castle. Every time, it fell apart, and the tears in her eyes came closer to slipping out._

_"Come play with us!" a boy called impatiently._

_"No! I have to make this!"_

_But with every passing moment, she came closer and closer to taking him up on his offer._

_Again and again she tried, until..._

_"You gotta make the sand wet."_

_Another girl came up to her, square glasses framing serious brown eyes._

_"Huh?" the strawberry blonde asked._

_"So they'll stick. You gotta make the sand wet. There's a hose over there."_

_The glasses girl led the strawberry blonde by the hand, showing her gently how to make the sand wet, but not so wet that it would fall apart. The strawberry blonde stood enraptured, and after a rough castle was built, she smiled shyly._

_"I'm Sam. What's your name?"_

_The glasses girl smiled back, showing her two missing front teeth. "I'm Leah."_

_Sam held out her pinky finger, now more confident. "Friends forever?"_

_"Friends forever."_

 

"Friends forever," the Transporter said sarcastically. "Or at least until this town gets its shit together and lynches the Arsonist."

The Vigilante nodded in agreement. "Damn their night immunity. Otherwise, I'd have shot her already."

The Arsonist was somehow cruising through the games with a Bodyguard claim and a sickly sweet smile. But no matter how much the Transporter and the Vigilante tried to lynch her, nothing was working. And the only thing they could do was watch helplessly as the town lynched its own and built itself up to being burnt to cinders.

The Transporter was not an unattractive woman or an attractive one. Back at home, back before the games, she was often referred to as "plain." She had a head of brown curly hair, but it seemed as if it was added only as an afterthought, because the rest of her face was made entirely of angles. They stood out especially when she was thinking deeply.

And in these games, the Transporter had been doing a lot of thinking. Her brown eyes were more and more serious behind those cat's eye glasses of hers.

The Arsonist, on the other hand, looked nothing but pensive. She would very often be found around the town, wave of strawberry blonde hair falling over one eye. The Transporter sometimes wondered what she was thinking.

"Transport me and Number Thirteen tonight," the Vigilante said, patting her on the back and snapping her out of her thoughts.

"You got it, partner."

 

_"You got it, partner!"_

_Sam stood on a chair, holding her and Leah's model of the solar system in the air, directing to her friend how she should paint it._

_"Y'all should use a lighter blue," Sam giggled, watching Leah stare at the Styrofoam balls._

_"Y'all is for two or more people," Leah protested, mixing white with the dark blue she had been using, tongue out ever-so-slightly. "For me, a cowboy would just use you."_

_"How do you know? Have you ever met one?"_

_Leah smiled. "Maybe I have."_

_"Where?"_

_"In my dreams."_

_"That doesn't count."_

_"Does too."_

_"Does not. Add a little swirl of blue there. For Neptune's Blue Spot."_

_"Does too. His name is Bob, and he told me to tell my best friend hi and to call me you."_

_Sam laughed. "Well, I can't fight a real-life dream cowboy. Tell him I said hi back."_

_The duo worked on the model for another couple of hours. Then, as Sam - who was taller - hanged it in their doorway, both girls looked at it with pride._

_"I hope she likes it," Leah whispered._

 

_I hope she likes it._

The Arsonist would try to douse someone new. But the Transporter and the Vigilante predicted her every move, and the Transporter, armed with nothing but her trusty vehicle, would make her douse the same person over and over again.

It wouldn't help much. But it was all they could do in this mess of a town. Maybe, it was all they could do at all.

"Come on in," the Transporter whispered to Number Thirteen, who did nothing but look at her with widening eyes. "Come on in."

 

_"Come on in!"_

_Sam gestured exaggeratedly at their new classroom. It was the two's first day of middle school, and they were just as nervous as they were excited. Luckily, they had the same homeroom period, so everything was going to be all right._

_Leah stepped inside, bowing. "As you wish, my lady."_

_The girls picked seats next to each other. How could they not? They were the only constant in this strange new school. In about a couple of minutes, the teacher came in, stood in front of the classroom, and clapped her hands._

_"Hello and welcome to my classroom. I'll be your teacher. It's lovely to have you here. Now, I'll be passing out the syllabus. Take one, pass it back."_

_She fumbled with the stack of papers in her arms for a long, long time. Eventually, Leah burst out in a whisper of frustration._

_"Come on already!"_

 

"Come on already!" the Transporter yelled in frustration during the discussion time, banging her fist against her knee. "Lynch the Arsonist! It's _obvious_ who she is!"

The Arsonist glared at her. "I'm the _Bodyguard,_ I said it, like, ten times already. Will you please just leave me alone?"

"No. Not until you die. Not until justice gets served." The Transporter glared back with the same ferocity.

"Why are you like this?" the Arsonist asked, voice now sounding genuinely soft. "Why in God's name are you like this?"

Why in God's name are you like this?

_Leah was sitting on her roof and looking up at the sky. Sam was gone, and none of their other friends were available to hang out, so she had plenty of time to think._

_She wasn't interested in any of the boys at her school, even though her parents had told her that she already should be. And the feelings that they described as happening when she looked at boys were the same exact ones that she felt when she looked at Sam._

_Leah knew that girls could like girls. But never did she imagine that she would be one of them. And yet now..._

_Now, the stakes of her closest friendship were changed. Now, Sam probably didn't love her back. Now, everything was different, and Leah wasn't sure whether she liked it or not._

_Now, even life itself felt surreal._

 

Now, even life itself felt surreal.

Days had passed, and still, the Arsonist had not ignited. The town was lynching its own at an impossible rate, and the Transporter spent her nights working and thinking and suffering. She just wanted it to end, all of it, but she knew that that couldn't happen.

Her only comfort was her trusty car by her side. She patted it absentmindedly, exhausted smile framing the lines of her face.

"I love you."

 

_"I love you."_

_Under urging from her friends, Leah had decided to confess. She and Sam were sitting by the pond behind her house and skipping stones when it came out in an urge._

_"Huh?" Sam asked, confused look on her face. Leah had seen it so often that it was no longer strange to her, and in fact, it compelled her to keep going._

_"I'm in love with you. I'm not going to say that I have been for a long time, because that's not true. I've only been in love with you for about a month. But I'm still in love with you. And..."_

_Leah wasn't good at this love thing. But she didn't need to be. Because in that instant, Sam leaned forward and kissed her softly but firmly on the lips._

_"I feel the same way," Sam murmured into her lips. "I've felt this way for a long time."_

 

"I've felt this way for a long time," the Vigilante mused to the Transporter during one of their rare breaks, "but towns are genuinely dumb. Dumber than mafia at least. Usually dumber than neutral killing."

"You're right. Sometimes, I'm ashamed to be aligned with their faction."

"Well, what would towns do without people like us?"

"I don't know, die? I mean, they're already dying..."

"I heard that!" a voice exclaimed from the nearby table. "Towns are _not_ dumb. We just don't want to believe vengeful Executioners."

The Transporter recognized it as the Investigator's and rolled her eyes. "I'm _confirmed,_ dumbass. Come on. Even _you_ can't be _this_ dumb."

"Dumb? I'm not dumb. Why are you acting like this? What is this?"

 

_"What is this?"_

_Leah froze in fear and turned around to see her mother carrying a letter. In a flash, she recognized it as the promposal she was delivering to Sam._

_"Oh, I'm asking my friend Sam out to prom._ _I hope_ he _says yes."_

 _"You've never mentioned a Sam. I don't know a boy Sam. But I_ do _know a girl Sam. And I know that you've been spending more time with her than you usually have."_

_Leah faked confusion, heart racing. "I don't know what you mean, Mother. We've always been friends."_

_"Leah. I want you to break up with her_ right this instant. _If you don't, I'm going to kick you out of the house, and I'll tell Sam's parents, too."_

_Sam's parents would be worse. So Leah had no choice._

_"Yes. Yes, of course."_

 

_Yes. Yes, of course._

Now was the time for the Arsonist to ignite. She grabbed her matches and wandered around the little arena.

_Did they really think they could fool me?_

The whole town was doused. And soon, she would emerge victorious.

 

_A young girl with strawberry blonde hair, tears pouring from her eyes, burns her love letters in the fireplace. Her hands are in pain, but none of it can compare to what she feels inside._

An older woman wanders the city, throwing matches onto houses, reveling in the screams of panic coming from the windows.

_A young girl with serious eyes behind glasses doesn't know what to do. So she goes to the only constant in her life: her car. She drives and drives and drives, not knowing or caring where, only caring about the pain she feels inside._

An older woman frantically transports people, trying in vain to protect them from the Arsonist's fire. But she wouldn't fool herself. Nothing she tried was going to work.

Everything, everything, everything was hopeless. Everything, everything, everything was burning into ashes.

 

The next morning, the Transporter and the Arsonist left their houses and looked at each other. The deaths were announced. Everyone was incinerated but them.

There was nothing to say. The game was over, and according to the rules, the Transporter was at the Arsonist's mercy.

It wouldn't be a battle between two opposing factions. It would be high school senior Sam poking her head out, wiping away tears with a fist, now with the perfect opportunity to get her revenge.

The Transporter closed her eyes and looked down. She knew that the Arsonist wouldn't hear her explanation. Everything at this point had a painful finality.

She waited for the finishing blow - or maybe it would be a burn. She wasn't entirely sure - but it never came. Instead, she heard a gentle whisper.

"Leah."

Leah looked up, stripping away the skin of the Transporter, and saw her former girlfriend with younger eyes. "Sam."

"I...I just have one question," Sam murmured, walking up to her and peering down to look her in the eye. "Why? Why did you...confess your love and then throw me away?"

"I didn't," Leah confessed, tears pooling in her eyes. "I swear to God, I didn't. My parents found out and threatened to kick me out and tell _your_ parents if I didn't. I didn't care what they did to me. I only cared about what _your_ parents would do to _you._ Sam, I'm sorry, I should have..."

Sam's face lost its sadness, and a soft smile graced her lips as she wrapped her in a hug. "I understand. I understand completely. Oh, Leah, I hated you so much..."

"Do you hate me now?"

"Of course I don't. I don't know how I ever could have hated you."

In a flash, Sam reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out the ID card that identified her as an anonymous Arsonist. She doused it in a small bottle of gas that she kept in her purse, threw it on the ground, and lit it up with a match. Leah, without hesitation, threw her own on top of the heap.

And then, the two women, no longer enemies but the exact opposite, took each other by the hand and walked out of the town.

And out of the games.

Forever.


End file.
